ASUS is showing off a new flagship X79 motherboard at CES called the P9X79-E WS. The workstation-class board is packed with hardware and ready to take Intel’s socket 2011-based Sandy Bridge-E processors to the extreme. The P9X79-E WS is of the E-ATX variety and features a LGA 2011 socket nestled between eight DDR3 DIMM slots. The board can support a maximum of 64GB clocked at 2400 MHz. An eight-pin CPU power and standard 24-pin ATX connector supplies power to the board while ASUS’ 10+2 phase DIGI+ VRM delivers clean power to the processor and memory.

The P9X79-E WS uses the X79 PCH and features six SATA 6 Gbps ports and four SATA 3 Gbps ports. With seven total PCI-E 3.0 x16 expansion slots, the P9X79-E WS can support quad SLI or CrossfireX multi-GPU solutions.

While not quite as outlandish as the Zeus and Wolverine prototype motherboards ASUS showed off at Computex, the P9X79-E WS is a high-end board that should actually see the light of day. Unfortunately, ASUS has not released any official pricing or availability for its new flagship X79 motherboard yet. WCCF Tech has several close up photos of the ASUS board worth looking at as well.

Specifications and Outside Features

In recent weeks we have been getting a lot of requests for system reviews, but when ORIGIN PC approached us about testing a super-high-end system with dual NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690s, we were definitely interested. When we were told to expect a 4.9 GHz Sandy Bridge-E platform to base those Quad SLI GPUs on, we were sold.

ORIGIN PC has been around since 2009 when several people started the company after leaving Alienware. While boutique computer builders are still fairly common in today's market, ORIGIN tries to differentiate with ideas like lifetime (yes, lifetime) phone and forum support for your system, lifetime labor for upgrades and services and 72 hours of burn in testing on each machine.

The rig we are looking at today falls under the Genesis brand and is the highest end starting point for a custom PC from ORIGIN. Options for this series include Sandy Bridge-E, Ivy Bridge and even AMD FX processors all with water cooling, multi-GPU configurations and of course, fancy lighting.

There is an ASRock two-fer over at Legion Hardware, with the $400 Fatal1ty X79 Champion for SandyBridge-E and the $350 Z77 Extreme9 for IvyBridge. As you can tell by the prices, ASRock has come far from its roots as a less expensive choice for value conscious buyers and is now ready to compete with the established companies like ASUS, Gigabyte and MSI. The X79 Champion carries a lot of extras, the Marvell SE9230 adds SATA 6Gbps ports and the SE9172 adds eSATA, as well you get USB 3.0 support from a TI TUSB7340 chip but all that comes at a cost, only a pair of full 16x PCI 3.0 ports. The Z77 Extreme9 also features extras in the form of the PLX PEX 8747 PCIe 3.0 chip which allows dual GPUs at 16x or quad at 8x, an ASMedia ASM1061 6Gbps for extra SATA 6Gbps and a a wireless and Bluetooth module.

"Overall we have been impressed by Asrock’s high-end offerings, as they really are top notch products. Asrock has continued to step up their game over the last few years and today we would have no problem purchasing one of their products over something from Asus or Gigabyte for example. The Fatal1ty X79 Champion and Z77 Extreme9 are more examples of why Asrock motherboards are worth checking out."

Introduction and Features

Introduction

Courtesy of ASUS

ASUS continues to optimize their hardware for the overclocking and PC gaming crowds, but they are also catering to a niche audience looking for ultra stable and durable PC components. ASUS's Sabertooth X79 motherboard is their one of their latest products to bear the TUF series label and sport customized hardware and thermal components as well as a desert camo color scheme to complete the military look. This $329 motherboard comes with a five-year warranty, digital power management system, rugged chokes, solid capacitors, and MOSFETs that have been certified through third party, military-grade testing.

Courtesy of ASUS

The Sabertooth X79 also comes with a host of other features to improve SSD caching and give users quad GPU support for CrossfireX and SLI graphics card configurations. This board also includes a unique UEFI BIOS and natively supports 2TB hard drives with 64-bit operating systems. The USB BIOS "Flashback" feature also helps new users update their motherboard BIOS without entering the BIOS. ASUS states that users can use any USB storage device with the latest BIOS, push the BIOS button located on the back I/O panel for three seconds, and the board will automatically update the BIOS using standby power. Very cool!

Courtesy of ASUS

The back I/O panel on the Sabertooth X79 is no slouch either as it gives users a healthy amount of USB 2.0, USB 3.0, and eSATA 6GB/s ports for greater performance and expandability options. They also added a small fan over the back I/O panel as part of their "TUF Thermal Armor" feature that will help cool and exhaust heat from ther motherboard out the back of the chassis. Let's move on to the rest of the Saberbooth X79's features where we will get our first out-of-the-box look at this motherboard.

Four new Intel motherboards from ASRock were revealed at Computex, the X79 Extreme11, Z77 Extreme9 and Z77 OC Formula. All use their new XFast 555 Technology software for XFast RAM, XFast LAN and XFast USB which should at the very least allow you great control over all the frequencies on your motherboard.

The motherboard for power users supports Sandy Bridge E processors, the X79 Extreme11 sports PLX PEX 8747 bridges which means this motherboard can run multi-GPU 4-Way SLI/CrossFireX at PCIe Gen3 x16/x16/x16/x16 and puts EVGA's Classified SR-2 in serious trouble on the Leaderboard when released. 24 + 2 Power Phase Design, onboard Creative Sound Core3D and an LSI SAS2308 chip which gives you ten SATA3 connectors with 8 of the able to be set to SAS mode.

The Z77 Extreme9 also sports the PLX PEX 8747 bridge which allows a surprising full PCIe Gen3 x8/x8/x8/x8 quad GPU mode. The included T2R Dual Band WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n + BT v4.0 Module supports dual band WiFi and BlueTooth and combines with the Wi-SB BOX to provide better signal and an extra pair of USB 3.0 connectors.

The Z77 OC Formula wants to step on ASUS' toes; while the score is impressive, the overclocks need a little work. They don't say much about this board but from the preliminary testing it looks like great fun for the serious overclocker.

Last but not least is the Z77 Extreme6/TB4 which features four channel Thunderbolt, for that you can read two Thunderbolt ports. ASRock mentions that this "allows one port to be connected to the onboard graphics and the other one can be used for discrete graphics card." which could lead to all sorts of speculation.

They are also showing the EN2C602-4L, E3C204-V, E3C204-4L and H77WS-DL server boards which come with a full suite of software to ensure an easy setup, an IPC motherboard for those small purpose-built applications and an intriguing HTPC box called the ASRock VisionX Series. This is reputed to featuring Ivy Bridge, Radeon HD 7850M graphics and AMD HD3D Technology with dual band WiFi but might cost a bit more than the alternative, the ASRock MINI Series which has and AMD E2-1800 backed up by a Radeon HD7340.

Inside and Out

When you are a little fish in the great big pond of PC builders, you need to do something to stand out from the rest. The people behind DV Nation apparently were well aware of that when entering the system vendor business and offering up SSDs to every single system configuration. Through a new system they are offering, provocatively named the "RAMRod PC", DV Nation provides a pre-built system that has some very unique components and configuration settings.

Built around the Antec Three Hundred Two chassis, the first glance at the RAMRod doesn't really indicate anything special is going on under the hood. But let's take a quick look at the specs:

Intel Core i7-3820 @ 4.4 GHz

64GB DDR3-1600 Memory from G.Skill

Radeon HD 6990 4GB

2x Seagate Momentus XT 750GB Hybrid HDD in RAID-0

OCZ RevoDrive 3 X2 480GB PCIE SSD

RAMCache: SuperSpeed Supercache 8GB on PCIE SSD, 8GB on Momentus

RAMDisk: 42GB ROMEX Primo rated at 8000 MB/s

Cost: $5,400

Obviously there is a LOT of storage work going on in the RAMRod and the purpose of the rig is to be the fastest pre-configured storage available anywhere. If you are looking for a cheaper version of this system you can get a base model with 16GB of memory, 10GB RAMDisk, 2GB RAMCache, 240GB PCIe SSD, single standard hard drive and even at GTX 680 for $2999.

Let's take a quick walk around the rest of the system before diving into the benchmarks!

Just Delivered is a section of PC Perspective where we share some of the goodies that pass through our labs that may or may not see a review, but are pretty cool none the less.

When you are a little fish in the great big pond of PC builders, you need to do something to stand out from the rest. The people behind DV Nation apparently were well aware of that when entering the system vendor business and offering up SSDs to every single system configuration. Through a new system they are offering, provocatively named the "RAMRod PC", DV Nation provides a pre-built system that has some very unique components and configuration settings.

Built around the Antec Three Hundred Two chassis, the first glance at the RAMRod doesn't really indicate anything special is going on under the hood. But let's take a quick look at the specs:

Intel Core i7-3820 @ 4.4 GHz

64GB DDR3-1600 Memory from G.Skill

Radeon HD 6990 4GB

2x Seagate Momentus XT 750GB Hybrid HDD in RAID-0

OCZ RevoDrive 3 X2 480GB PCIE SSD

RAMCache: SuperSpeed Supercache 8GB on PCIE SSD, 8GB on Momentus

RAMDisk: 42GB ROMEX Primo rated at 8000 MB/s

Cost: $5,400

Obviously there is a LOT of storage work going on in the RAMRod and the purpose of the rig is to be the fastest pre-configured storage available anywhere. If you are looking for a cheaper version of this system you can get a base model with 16GB of memory, 10GB RAMDisk, 2GB RAMCache, 240GB PCIe SSD, single standard hard drive and even at GTX 680 for $2999.

Introduction and Exterior

When we do system reviews at PC Perspective we tend to look for some specific feature, or some unique asset, that the builder has to provide value to the consumer and potential customer. I have seen systems that provided a great cost value, ones that offer an extremely quiet experience, some that are in a small form factor, etc. Our review of the MAINGEAR Shift custom machine is here due simply to an impressive collection of hardware.

While you can grab a Shift PC starting under $2000, ours isn't going to come anywhere near that. In fact, as of this writing, the configuration we are detailing would run you about $6,200. Why? Take a look at the specifications:

Intel Core i7-3960X Sandy Bridge-E

16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1866

ASUS Rampage IV Extreme X79 Motherboard

3 x Radeon HD 7970 3GB Graphics Cards

2 x Corsair Force GT 120GB SSDs (RAID-0)

1TB Western Digital 7200 RPM HDD

Corsair AX1200 watt power supply

MAINGEAR Epic 180 water cooler

MAINGEAR Epic Audio system

Fancy White LEDs

So with a Sandy Bridge-E processor, 16GB of memory, three HD 7970s running in CrossFireX and Corsair SSDs running in a RAID-0 array, this is one of the fastest gaming PCs you can purchase today.

A Look at the Shift

The specifications are just part of the story though; MAINGEAR is well known for building a high quality machine with attention to detail and continues to push forward with unique ideas like a vertical system design (first system builder to introduce it), custom 180mm water coolers and even in-house thermal interfaces.

While MAINGEAR does offer systems in a variety of colors, our system uses the basic brushed black aluminum. The window on the side panel is another option that was included on our demo rig.

Introduction and Features

Introduction

Courtesy of Gigabyte

We are still making our way through an avalanche of X79 motherboards on our test bench that leverages the power of Sandy Bridge-E CPUs, but we didn't want to wait any longer on powering up Gigabyte's GA-X79-UD5 extended ATX motherboard. Gigabyte has really stepped up their game by offering optimized LGA 2011 for no-nonsense PC builders, hardware enthusiasts, serious overclockers, and even FPS/RPG PC gamers. Our review of the X79-UD5 is going to evaluate every aspect of the board's ability to handle automatic and manual overclocking, DX10/DX11 gaming, and other synthetic and real-world benchmarks.

Courtesy of Gigabyte

The Gigabyte X79-UD5 motherboard takes full advantage of the new features available with the LGA 2011 platform and X79 Express chipset like the abiliy to use up to 64GBs of quad-channel memory via eight DIMMs and support for dual and triple AMD CrossfireX or NVIDIA SLI graphics card configurations for multi-monitor, high-definition gaming. These features should make ultra enthusiasts grin from ear to ear because they will probably be the ones who tandem this board with an Intel Core i7-3960X processor and dual NVIDIA GTX 680s graphics cards that were just released earlier this week. The $299 price tag on this board also places it right in the middle of the pack of LGA 2011 motherboards available on Newegg and other vendors.

VR-Zone took a processor from each of Intel's last three architectures, clocked them all to 4.7GHz and started benchmarking. By clocking them all the same you get to see a better comparison of the performance of the various architectures, although the motherboard chipset does introduce a variable into the performance results. As well, the Ivy Bridge Core i7-3770K is an engineering sample and so may not perfectly reflect the performance of the final retail product. Drop by to see how these chips compare in synthetic benchmarks.